Wednesday, January 30, 2008

2nd day in Shanghai

Work is good - it's great to finally meet everyone. Met with the vendors and made a schedule / project plan. Noticed some critical things that hadn't been performed by the vendors - I didn't get here a moment too soon. Scheduled some important meetings for tomorrow - and also the IT systems will start moving to the new office tomorrow.

Most of the office went out for lunch, so I did have one authentic Chinese (Cantonese) meal today. The strangest thing I tried was something that looked like calamari.

Guess what, it's duck tongue!! The outside is chewy, the inside is ligamenty, and the whole thing is not super tasty. The funny thing is that China gets most of their duck tongues from the US because we don't eat them - and because we are constantly sending back empty cargo ships due to the trade imbalance. Also had a couple of steamed dim sum plates, lots of chicken dishes, some soups, etc.

The place looks really cool in a Boston Faneuil Hall sorta way and is one of the few preserved "old" buildings in Asia, but then after walking around I noticed that every restaurant and shop is some sort of chain. Had dinner there at Paulaner (German brewpub). There were mostly Chinese and Germans in there, which makes it fairly authentic :)

Here's a couple of pictures of Xin Tian Di and HuaiHai Street that runs between there and my hotel/office. So far I have successfully avoided the Chicken Feet.